“Family Student Housing.”

Most know the residential area exclusively through the Santa Cruz Metro’s automated bus stop announcement. The 199-unit housing community extends from the edge of Porter Meadow down to the east entrance in 42 nondescript beige buildings.

UCSC’s Family Student Housing (FSH) units opened to students with families in 1971 at a rate significantly lower than that of the local market in order to provide affordable housing. Yet, for a community that used to operate at near 90 percent occupancy, FSH has had higher amounts of vacancies in the past few years.

“When we moved in, they had us sign a waiver that we knew there would be hazardous materials like lead and asbestos in the units,” said two-year resident of FSH Raquel Vega. “A lot of our neighbors have mold in their bathrooms.”

For many FSH residents, however, their largest worry stems not from the living conditions, but from affordability.

FSH is no small component of a student with family’s experience at UCSC. For many students, affordable rent here makes a university degree possible.

Illustration by Amanda Alten

Resident and single mother Brynda Zeller commented on the benefits of living at FSH.

“The best part about living here is the community. [My daughter] Alyssa is able to go and play with the neighbors’ kids right across the way,” Zeller said. “I can wake up and take her to preschool. It’s free if you’re income eligible, and most of the residents do qualify.”

Zeller works part-time, but attributes her ability to live at FSH to substantial financial aid.

At $1,407 per month, FSH at UCSC is currently the third most expensive of the UCs after UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.

In 2009, rent at FSH increased 7.5 percent, followed by substantial residential outcry.

After halting another comparable rent increase, the administration has slowly increased yearly rent in smaller, 3–4 percent amounts since 2009.

Most off-campus housing spaces advertised for college students do not or cannot accommodate a student’s family and children. Those that can are generally more expensive than the FSH units UCSC offers, according to campus provost Alison Galloway.

Former FSH resident Elaine Kinchen, who graduated in 2010,  said shouldering the increases changed her academic plan significantly.

“For me, the rent increases meant taking 25 units per quarter,” Kinchen said. “Still, in the one and a half years I was in school, I graduated with $11,000 in student loans.”

She added that the current cost of rent in a FSH unit would be insurmountable.

“I could not go back to school now if I tried,” Kinchen said. “No family in my situation could.”

In order to lessen the recent hardship many FSH residents face, the administration has extended the rate-saver option, which insulates continuing residents from rent increases, to the community for one year. The housing policy was also amended to allow one non-family member in. In years past, this would have violated contract requirements.

Raquel Vega, a Cabrillo College student, and her partner Luciano Hidalgo, a UCSC undergraduate, are raising their daughter at FSH. Hidalgo works part-time as a tutor, but the family does not have a steady source of income.

“We had to go and apply for social services in order to maintain. It’s pretty much running on financial aid, which is $1,800 per quarter, food stamps, another $100–300 … and the other half is loans,” Hidalgo said. “If it were to go higher, we would be forced to move back home.”

Taking Down the House

The UCSC’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), confirmed by the Board of Regents in 2006, included plans to demolish and renovate FSH in an effort to increase accessibility and living conditions.

“The low availability and high cost of [off-campus] housing has made it difficult for the campus to attract and retain talented students with families,” according to the LRDP proposal. “It has become increasingly difficult to develop and maintain the desired close-knit campus learning community.”

To address these concerns, a set of goals for the future of FSH were created. Included in the list were objectives to build additional housing units that “are as affordable as feasible.”

A 2008 civil lawsuit agreement required the campus LRDP to provide more on-campus housing for a projected increase in enrollment.

Associate vice chancellor Sue Matthews explained the university’s plan for future FSH development.

“[Right now] we need somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,100 beds to meet our projected growth,” Matthews said. “Our angle is to deliver something as affordable and accessible as possible.”

The project was a complete renovation plan, one where the existing FSH units would be demolished in two phases, and replaced with higher-density units and an expanded childcare facility — effectively doubling the available living space.

Campus provost Galloway said the amount of relief the university can provide is limited. However, she said she is hoping the university will be able to help those who are in “critical condition.”

The plan was met with significant resident concern over raised pricing. Former FSH resident Kinchen said the administration’s “critical condition” criteria needs adjusting.

“To increase rent when people are barely making it by with food stamps … [would be] a little bit ridiculous,” Kinchen said.

In response to resident concern, the administration expressed willingness to work with residents to find an alternative solution that would mitigate immediate impacts. Several campus entities looked for alternatives to the LRDP plan.

One was FSH resident and Ph.D. candidate Orville Canter, who proposed that FSH be turned into a co-operative housing arrangement.

With help from his wife Victoria and others including teaching assistant union president Josh Brahinsky and Graduate Student Association president Erik Green, Canter worked for nearly a year in writing his Affordable Family Student Housing (AFSH) proposal. When he turned in the final draft on March 28, it was also the result of significant communication with the housing department.

Undergraduate Brenda Zeller and her daughter Alyssa inside their home at Family Student Housing. Photo by Nallely Ruiz.

Under Canter’s proposal, he outlined a cooperative housing model wherein FSH would cede from the campus housing syndicate and handle rent, maintenance and community welfare internally.

Currently, one-third of the $3 million annual gross revenue generated by FSH is deposited into a campus-wide syndicated housing fund, partly to pay off the construction debt and maintenance of other housing projects on campus.

The proposal, which mirrored similar student-cooperative housing accommodations at other universities nationwide, was particularly appealing for FSH residents.

“The only people who don’t like this proposal are people who haven’t read it,” FSH resident Hidalgo said.

AFSH projections included significantly reduced rent for FSH residents, full or partial scholarships, free housing for especially needy families, increased energy efficiency and a variety of sustainability infrastructure. The proposal also outlined doubling the pay of FSH maintenance workers without affecting the contracts of union employees.

Canter’s proposal specified a clear intention to continue collaborating with the university in the form of regular reports and open access to the site for the administrators, as well as a five-year “testing” phase to ensure success.

However, when proposal drafters met with campus provost Alison Galloway, associate vice chancellor Sue Mathews and vice chancellor Peggy Delaney with their final draft on March 28, the proposal was declined in favor of the LRDP project.

“We’re pretty disappointed,” Canter said. “When we showed up [with the final draft], it seemed like [the provost] already made up her mind and wasn’t listening to anything we said.”

Campus provost Galloway, who authorizes decisions to renovate FSH, said the proposal was technically impractical.

“I’m pretty open to getting proposals for things we can make work better,” Galloway said. “So I was not going to say, ‘Oh no, you cannot do that’ from the very start because I didn’t know if it was going to be feasible. But the overall prospect of taking and blocking that out of our housing would be very, very difficult.”

Galloway said the proposal’s offered liability protection of FSH was ultimately too risky.

“No matter what happens, the university is the deep pocket, so if anything goes wrong, the liability rests with us,” she said.

Immediately after the meeting, Canter created a Change.org petition titled “Save Family Student Housing,” with a signature goal of 1,000. Currently, over 600 have signed. Openly critical comments from dozens of self-identified students, alumni and allies followed.

Moving forward, the tone of discussion may yet go a different direction.

Erica Ayon is the chair of the Student Labor Action Project, a Student Organization Advising and Resources organization at UCSC. The group has unanimously approved AFSH.

“There’s usually a student committee for new construction,” Ayon said. “With Social Sciences III, there was a student committee — people showed up with building plans, they knew the budget, etc. But this time there really hasn’t been much involvement.”

Hidalgo said he is not sure about how much impact discussion can have at this point.

“I don’t think we can be really clear about being willing to work with the administration because they’re not clear with us,” Hidalgo said. “They say that they’re willing to work but it’s always ‘under these conditions.’”

Students and residents of Family Student Housing gather at the Quarry Plaza for campus provost and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway’s office hours. Photo by Chelsea McKeown.

Campus provost Galloway said any minor services to FSH buildings would trigger the need for massive repairs.

“The structures themselves need replacing,” Galloway said. “That’s the unavoidable part of it.”

Advertisements currently exist on TAPS buses and the UCSC Housing website to announce the available FSH space. So far, over 60 applications have been submitted, roughly 10 percent, 30 percent and 50 percent of which are from single-parent families, two-parent families and couples, respectively.

“[Canter] had a lot of good ideas, but I think a lot of it was wishful thinking — it just wouldn’t happen, given the way things are set up,” Zeller said. “But I don’t think any perceived risks of having a co-op outweigh the need for affordable FSH.”

Galloway said renovation plans are not finalized.

“The bulldozers are not arriving over the summer,” she said. “But if things change, we may have to push forward.”

Over 40 FSH residents and concerned allies showed up at Galloway’s most recent office hours, held on April 19, creating a small crowd in Quarry Plaza. She stayed to speak to each one personally, although she couldn’t promise anything beyond a conversation.

Live murals, good food and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros fill up the common room, as friends and strangers meet for the Chavez Art Show. This is the Cesar Chavez Co-op, where UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College students have been living for nearly 20 years.

Chavez is a housing cooperative in which residents share rent, eat meals together, and are responsible for upkeep of the house. One of the biggest in Santa Cruz, Chavez holds close to 30 members.

Events like Chavez’s Art Show used to be a lot more common, says UCSC third-year Chavez resident, Nick Golden.

Neighbor relations, zoning problems, debt and a fire in 2005 all affected planned events and membership at Chavez. But Golden says that Chavez is making a comeback.

“We’re definitely on the up right now, which is really exciting to see,” he said. “We’re still working out some kinks with getting the house back on track in

The walls of Chavez are regularly updated with artwork. The largest co-op in Santa Cruz, its spaces are canvases for many student artists. Photo by Prescott Watson.

terms of work shifts and making sure people do them, and getting it into a fully functioning co-op, but it’s so much better than it’s been in the past.”

Housing co-ops are nothing new. The first housing cooperatives in the United States popped up in New York City in the late 1800s, initially serving the upper class. Eventually they became widely populated by union workers who didn’t want to live in the slums.

Since then, cooperatives have become a popular option for college students. Housing cooperatives have grown to over a million units across the country, according to the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA). NCBA is a resource for cooperatives of all types, such as food, credit unions, agricultural, business and housing.

Currently, UC Berkeley has one of the largest network of student co-ops, with 17 houses and 1,300 students in the Berkeley Student Cooperative. Their network is solely focused on students, while most in Santa Cruz are open to anyone, including non-students.

Heidi Lieben piles cover crop in Food Not Lawns’ backyard greenhouse. Photo by Prescott Watson

Morgan Harris of the Food Not Lawns co-op off of Mission Street, said there are a lot of benefits for students living in cooperatives.

“As we move off to college we tend to go through this extremely individualistic and often isolationist kind of phase, so the value of co-ops is that it gives you sort of this family to connect back with,” Harris said. “It may not be as deep as your blood family, of course, but in terms of a place for you to grow and love, you really can get that community and get grounded.”

Chavez and Zami! on Laurel Street are two of the largest co-ops in Santa Cruz. They’re sister houses, meaning they make up an organization called the Santa Cruz Student Housing Cooperative (SCSHC), colliqually known as “Chazam.” They work together on projects, from building chicken coops to writing co-op cookbooks, and they also share a lease with a the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO).

NASCO, founded in 1968, is an organization that helps educate co-ops across the country. It holds an annual conference, the NASCO Institute, where it tackles common issues with co-ops. Part of the company, NASCO Properties, also holds leases, and is working with Chazam to get its debt paid off and come back to its master lease. This is instead of the individual leases it has now, which provide a little more security for NASCO.

While individual leases give NASCO more financial security, NASCO is committed to helping Chazam get back on their feet, and gain more local control with a master lease,

Illustration by Bela Messex.

Daniel Miller, NASCO’s director of development and property services, said that NASCO is there to help.

“The whole idea behind NASCO Properties is to help the local co-op get the tools they need to run their co-op,” he said in an email. “We try to help them understand the process of starting a new non-profit, doing outreach to find new members in their community and running their co-op legally and responsibly.”

Other cooperatives in Santa Cruz either own their house, or have worked out a situation with their landlord to allow a cooperative to exist. Food Not Lawns is one such co-op.

Ducks quack and chickens cluck behind recent UCSC alumnus Harris, who sits on a wooden bench in the garden behind Food Not Lawns. Holding a cup of tea, Harris said a love of sustainability and farming unites them.

“We are here to learn how to garden and to learn how to live sustainably,” he said. “We’re fortunate, we’re blessed enough to have this space where we can do that, [in which] we can work in and play.”

The front lawn of the house, which sprouts off between Mission and Laurel, was completely dug up a few years ago and replaced with vegetables. In the back garden, greenhouses were installed and rows of lettuce, flowers and other plants grow. Food Not Lawns was founded by a group of UCSC students who had met at Pica, a green sustainability program based out of UCSC’s The Village.

Harris, who has been a member for a year and a half, will be teaching a Free Skool course this year, along with two of his housemates.

Free Skool, a community-driven education system loosely organized by residents of Santa Cruz, is all about free learning for anyone who wants it, by whoever wants to teach it.

“[As a co-op] we are teaching a lot of classes this quarter,” Harris said. “One’s about agroecology, horticulture and backyard composting, and then there are other fun ones that we do.”

Food Not Lawns has between eight and 10 members, and only half are students. Harris said personal history and education are not necessarily relevant to living in a co-op.

“We just want passionate people who want to learn more about this kind of lifestyle,” he said. “They just have to have a willingness to learn and be an open communicator, someone who wants to be part of a community.”

A death in the house, combined with zoning issues and member turnover, has brought down membership at Zami!.

Caity Fares sits on an old couch on the Zami! Patio. As music floats out of the house and holiday lights rest above, Fares remembers how they recovered.

November Skye, a Zami! resident, keeps his eyes on the co-op’s cats in the kitchen. Photo by Prescott Watson.

“After all of the debt was brought to our attention as a serious problem, it was then that we started to come together and form a stronger collective, and you know, hold up the foundation,” she said.

In February, Chavezians and Zami!tes met to discuss the future of Chazam and the current state of their co-ops and their master lease. Flying in from Chicago, Miller from NASCO attended the joint-house meeting, and said NASCO is there to help in a supporting role.

He said that their goal is that within a few months, Chazam will have a plan of action as to what they want to do, and how they want to handle city regulations that limit the number of members they can have.

“NASCO Properties sees what’s happening now as a temporary step to try and help the co-op members get the tools they need to get back on track,” Miller said. “SCSHC has a mission to provide affordable housing to students to make education more accessible to them … NASCO Properties has a mission of helping local cooperatives fulfill their missions.”

City zoning laws limiting tenants create a number of problems for members of Zami!.

“The main issue is parking,” said Zami! resident November Skye. “We have to have a certain number of parking spots per person, and we’re looking into finding spots on the street that we can use.”

Two houses fill the property, along with a mini-barn and five cats. And the front house is sideways — Zami!’s main house once sat where the Louden Nelson Community Center is now.

In years past, most people entered Zami! through the pink and purple gate on the side — to enter through the front meant walking into someone’s bedroom.

Members of the Cesar Chavez Co-op pose for a photo in their dining room. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Now though, that space is a common room. Similar transformations occurred throughout the house after the enforcement of city zoning laws forced residents to turn bedrooms into common spaces.

After necessary structural renovations, city officials saw how residents were living in more rooms then zoned for and forced the co-op to reduce its number of tenants.

“We feel like we kind of kicked ourselves, because the reason we ran into trouble was because we were finally getting our shit together and getting the renovations done,” Skye said.

Skye, who changed his name upon coming to Zami!, says living in a co-op allows people to change — they get to decide who they are.

“Here, you stop having to work off cultural scripts, of ‘this is what people are supposed to want, this is what I’m supposed to do,’ and it lets people live their own lives,” he said.

Once, with members sleeping in tents in the backyard and a family of six in the house, residents of Zami! numbered over 30 people.

It was difficult organizing that many people, let alone the normal challenges of co-ops, said Skye.

Occupants at both Chavez and Zami! devote five hours of “love-shifts” per week, making dinner, cleaning bathrooms, managing membership, etc., and are working toward being a really “progressive space,” Skye said.

“We try to focus on dispersing skills, especially across class and gender boundaries. It’s not OK when all the working-class people are doing dishes and all the middle class people are doing management positions,” he said.

A handwritten scrawl on the wall declares that the house was built in 1887. This kind of history is often the only way members can leave a lasting message in many co-ops, as houses change with every new generation of members.

“Every time we get new members, they ask about who we are and we get to decide that every year,” he said.

Morgan Harris, a resident of Food Not Lawns, holds up a chicken he describes as integral to their gardening cycle. Photo by Prescott Watson.

Co-ops provide a space in which communities can grow. Many co-ops tend to be particularly appealing to students because they are also often affordable.

“It is cheap,” said Breeze Kanikula, a member of the 12 Tribes Jewish Co-op. “And that’s a great thing.”

Low rent costs come at a price, however, said November Skye, third-year resident of the Zami! co-op on Laurel Street.

“Part of why it’s cheap is because you’re doing five hours of maintenance every week,” he said.

Posters of James Dean and classic movies line the living room walls, along with the 12 Tribes’ mission statement, which reads, “[12 Tribes] is a home for anyone interested in living communally while exploring Jewish culture, traditions, and values.”

This means that while most are Jewish, it isn’t a requirement.

“I’m not, and neither are the treasurer and one of the other girls,” Kanikula said. “I do participate in the culture though. I like it, it’s fun. I used to go to Shabbat when I was a kid, with my other Jewish friends.”

Because members often dumpster dive, and bread has a long shelf life, toast has become a symbol of the Cesar Chavez Co-op. Members proudly display this insignia everywhere. Photo by Prescott Watson

Kanikula said that there are certain things that their co-op does differently from others, though, being one of the few religious-based cooperatives in Santa Cruz.

“We do keep the fridge kosher an

d all of our dinner nights kosher,” she said. “We do have different pots and pans for meat and dairy.”

12 Tribes participates in the larger Santa Cruz Jewish community.

“Every Friday we do Shabbat with Hillel and Chabad house,” Kanikula said. “Hillel is a house for Jewish UCSC students, and Chabad is a national organization, where a rabbi lives in the house with his wife. Shabbat is from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown, and we’re not supposed to work or use any electricity, just be one with God.”

The culture of co-ops is continuing to thrive in Santa Cruz and has a promising future, as is evident through the creation of the Art Co-op in winter 2010. Their co-op is one of the smallest, with seven members, and was founded by two previous members of the 12 Tribes. According to founding member Sarah Jaffe, the group has aspirations to grow as a co-op.
“We’re trying to have shows a few times a quarter, and we all help each other out [with each others’ art],” she said.
Caity Fares of the Zami! co-op said a that a lot can be learned from living in a co-op, considering that it is a space that enables the integration of many types of people to form a single community.

“It helps you to understand how every person is dynamic and important, how society tells you to be one way, but it’s important to be yourself and learn from others.”

Adrian Kazay, a third-year transfer student, explains his reasons for moving off campus. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

Along with the sunburns and campus tourists, another indicator that spring is here is bombarding students at UC Santa Cruz: campus housing advertisements.

This spring has seen a greater marketing effort for campus housing than in past years, and the content of the advertisements has changed as well. The university is reaching out to older students through new features such as upperclassmen priority for housing, and new options like themed residence halls, such as the social justice building located at College Eight.

“Historically, many students have chosen to move off campus after their sophomore or junior year,” said Kevin Tresham, assistant director for student housing services, in an e-mail to City on a Hill Press. “Because of the decrease in new student enrollment and our expanded housing inventory, we are able to house more upper-division students, and are seeking to create an environment where a four-year university housing experience is the norm,” he said.

Large freshman classes in former years created a housing crunch, forcing the university to prioritize first and second-year students, with many living in converted triples. Housing expansion projects, like the one being completed at Porter College, were implemented to house the growing university population.

When administrators cut faculty and services, fewer first-year students were accepted in an attempt to preserve the quality of the university’s academic experience. This decreased enrollment created unused housing space, and the university is attempting to fill that space with their larger junior and senior classes.

The university has added new housing options that they hope will attract older students.

These new options include the Redwood Grove Apartments, currently known as Kresge East, which will allow students of any college to live together. The university has also created a “Rate Saver” program, allowing all continuing students who apply during the priority housing period to pay the 2009-2010 rate for the 2010-2011 school year.

Despite these new measures, third-year literature major Adrian Kazay doesn’t feel that older students will be interested in living at university housing.

“You don’t see too many upperclassmen even talking about it,” Kazay said. “I didn’t even know that this was going on until you contacted me to [do an] interview. There may have been e-mail notifications, but if so, I just discarded them.”

In an effort to entice more students to live on campus, the university published information highlighting the proximity to classes that living on campus provides.

The information also warns that students who live off campus may feel disconnected to their fellow students and may become less involved in campus organizations.

The university’s comparison portrays living on campus as a much more convenient and desirable option, and some students have expressed that this information was a significant factor in their decision-making process.

“[At one point], I actually really wanted to live off campus, but, after looking at the pros and cons of off campus versus on campus [on the housing website],” said Angela Humphrey, first-year student at College Eight. “I realized living in a university apartment was the smarter choice for my sophomore year.”

Humphrey cites convenience as her main reason for staying on campus next year. “It’s going be easier to get to class. I can also meet more people, and I can eat at the dining hall instead of worrying about cooking every night,” she said.

Aside from attracting the larger junior and senior classes to university housing to fill space, the university says living on-campus provides students with a bonding experience that is impossible to replicate.

“It’s a different atmosphere up on campus. I know a lot of the close bonds I’ve made with people have been with those who I lived on campus with,” said Sapandeep Chadda, interim housing coordinator for Merrill College.

While Chadda enjoyed the social opportunities offered by university housing, third-year student Adrian Kazay says the campus was too isolating. After starting the year in a College Eight residence hall, Kazay moved to a university apartment, and then eventually moved off campus.

“I remember studying for hours on end at the library and then going back to my apartment,” said Kazay. “It was like ‘I need to get off [campus], I need to get off [campus]!”

Although the university has made many changes to their housing offerings to appeal to more upperclassmen, Kazay doesn’t feel they will be successful.

“Living off campus just gives you freedom,” he said. “It’s plain and simple.”

Illustration by Joe Lai.

In wake of the recent racially insensitive incidents at UC San Diego and a racially offensive image drawn on the wall of a bathroom stall at the Earth and Marine Sciences building at UC Santa Cruz, campus leaders are trying to promote inclusion through new housing communities with special themes.

Ideas to ameliorate tension caused by racist incidents were pitched after various student organizations approached UCSC administrators and encouraged them to find a way of drawing attention to the diverse student population.

“We should use these issues as instruments of inclusion, and these recent events present an opportunity to improve our community,” said Pablo Reguerin, executive director of Retention Services and director of Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP), in response to the concerns of the students at UCSC.

The student call to action was met with a swift reaction by campus administrators, many of whom met with students and agreed with the need to acknowledge diversity.

Administrators revealed a plan that had been in preparation for a long time to create non-college specific housing focusing on multiculturalism.

Colleges & University Housing Services (CUHS) began to distribute information and interest inquiries for culturally-themed housing facilities, with the intention of establishing these facilities in the near future.

The new themes would include an Indigenous Peoples Hall at Merrill College, a transfer-specific community at Porter, and an African-American-themed facility, known as PAATH, at Stevenson College. PAATH stands for Project African-American Theme Housing.

EOP director Reguerin said if enough people are interested in an African-American-themed facility, an entire dormitory at Stevenson may be converted into a theme-specific residence.

UCSC administrators and housing coordinators believe that these new facilities will have a positive impact on the students.

Citing examples from Cornell University and UC Berkeley, Reguerin highlighted the positive results of African-American-themed housing at those schools and his hopes that there would be similar results at UCSC.

“Theme housing is meant to be inclusive. This is not the end-all solution to many diversity issues, but it’s a step forward,” he said.

The African-American-themed housing was an idea proposed to administrators in the past. However, due to the lack of a facility in which to develop culturally themed housing, the idea never came to fruition.

When a facility became available, Reguerin issued an informative e-mail to students questioning their interest in living in an African-American culture-themed facility. The response was considerably positive and those who expressed an interest were encouraged to forward the information to other students with similar interests.

Although the majority of feedback to Reguerin has been positive, he has acknowledged that some students have expressed concerns about establishing ethnic or racially-themed housing.

Aviva Wolman, a first-year from Stevenson College, expressed mixed feelings about the new housing community.

“I think it’s nice to have culture-themed housing because it makes it easier to bond, but I’m skeptical of this new plan because it may lead to segregation of black students,” Wolman said. “But if anyone can live in the African-American-themed facility then I think it would be cool to see how people bond when they have a culture to share.”

Reguerin stressed the importance of building a stronger and more diverse community by bringing people with similar interests together in order to educate themselves and their peers in a positive way.

“African-American-themed housing is not a racially exclusive housing facility. It will be a place in which all people who are interested in African-American culture or history can be exposed to others with similar interests and further their knowledge,” Reguerin said.

Donnae Smith, Diversity & Inclusion program coordinator of the colleges and university housing services, applauded the idea.

“There has been a considerable number of off-campus students who have expressed an interest in returning to campus-sponsored housing facilities in order to live in this new community,” she said.

Some think this idea represents the pinnacle of change and advancement for the university, as it stands as one of many ideas that may alter the face of the UCSC community.

In addition to culturally-themed housing, there may also be non-college specific housing that allows people from different colleges to live together without changing their affiliation.

Smith said, “We are trying to encourage interaction between students and faculty members from various backgrounds.”